March 14

          Finally, I'm catching up!  At the end of planting today, I'm at 76 plants out of 73 days.  I need to be way ahead, however, to go into the dry weather months when I can't plant, when small plants just planted won't survive.  I'm not going to be able to take water to my plants, though I probably will try if we have drought.
          Today I planted six Cornus sericea along the entry roadway to C5.  I'm planning a "hedgerow" of red osier dogwood, yellow bark willow, nootka or rugosa rose, Douglas spirea - between the roadway and neighbors' house.  I have C. sericea Moyer's red, and its twigs and branches are STUNNING red in winter.  Maybe some snowberry, but I worry about poisonous berries - how poison are they?!
          So, scoped out the area, planted 5 on 5-foot centers, one close to C5 parking lot, mulched them with cardboard I got at outlet mall in Lincoln City, loaded two pickup bed's full of chips, drove them over, backed up close to my plants and covered the cardboard thoroughly.  Should be pretty, though it will take a few years.  Plants are small.
           I also looked over the native plants we (high-schoolers on do-good day, me and KB, and 2 other adult helpers) planted May 2009.  Most are fine.  The Escallonia (non-native, from Chile, easy to start from cuttings) I put in for evergreen privacy between neighbor and C5 (evergreen and dense, but not tall) have all died - in the early winter cold snap?  too young to live through it? My large ones here look hard hit, but are alive.  Hard to think of a native, short and evergreen.  Vaccinium ovatum needs shade, but might do well.
           The C5 property between the common roadway and B's house is 30' wide by 182.11'
long.  Electric service comes in underground along the edge of the roadway to C5 parking lot, from there to big "electrical" box on ground right by fence corner.  EMBARQ-TELCO wires come from pole on NWside of roadway, stay underground along that side of roadway - from there under our plantings between B's house and the C5 parking lot.  (This info to help me remember where services are for future plantings.)